Wild Secret

is flipping through a file cabinet as we speak. Hopefully, those records haven’t been tossed out."
“What about the identity of the girl?”
"I'm working on that, but I need somewhere to start first. The bad news is that the sodium hydroxide dissolved all the flesh and fibrous materials. Good news is that some of the acrylic fibers and thermoplastics remained intact."
“So, there were other items in the barrel with her?”
“Yes. She had a bookbag with her. Most of the bag and its contents were destroyed. But one of the textbooks had a cover that was coated with a thermoplastic resin. It's pretty faded and damaged, but with a spectroscope, I might be able to pick out some details of the cover, hopefully the title and edition number. I might be able to track down when and where that book was used.”
"Fingers crossed."
“Also, I didn’t find any evidence of a cell phone. At least some of the components would have survived the sodium hydroxide. That tells me we could be dealing with a very old case. How many teenagers do you know that are separated from their phone? Again, nothing conclusive. The girl’s killer could have disposed of that somewhere else.”
"Keep me posted."
"Will do,” she said before ending the call.
JD drove to the station, and we hopped out and pushed inside. The office bustled with activity. JD and I poured ourselves a cup of coffee, then found Denise at her desk.
"Do me a favor, would you?" I asked.
"Depends on the favor," she sassed.
"Start sifting through all of Chuck's recent arrests. Let's start putting together a list of potential suspects who may have had a vendetta."
“I’m already on it,” she said with a smile.
I grinned.
Daniels stepped out of his office and marched toward us. "Mendoza just pulled over a silver sedan with plates that match the stolen vehicle. He’s at the 400 block of Pompano Drive. Get over there and see what you can find out. I'm sending a forensics team to go over the vehicle with a fine-toothed comb.
We hustled out of the station and ran across the parking lot to the Porsche. We hopped in the car and sped over to the scene.
The lights on Mendoza's patrol car flickered behind the silver sedan that was pulled to the shoulder near a self-storage unit. A brunette woman in her late 20s stood by the trunk of the vehicle with Mendoza. We parked behind the patrol car and hopped out.
Mendoza shook his head as we approached. "No dice. This isn’t the car. Somebody swapped the plates. The VIN doesn't match.”
"I didn't even notice," the woman said. "I swear, I didn't shoot a cop. I don't even own a gun."
Her name was April McGee. She said she worked at a daycare for special needs children. She didn't quite fit the profile of a cop killer. She had shoulder-length brown hair, a pretty face, and wore a plain sundress. Mendoza had run a background check on her, and she had no criminal history. No outstanding warrants. Not so much as a speeding ticket.
"Where were you last night around 10 PM?" I asked.
"I was at home,” April said. “I go to sleep pretty early. I’m usually out by 10 or 10:30 PM.”
"What about your car?"
"It was parked on the street last night."
"You didn't happen to see anyone switch the plates, did you?”
She shook her head, then thought for a moment. "But I do have a video doorbell. It goes off every time somebody on the street passes by. I've been meaning to turn the sensitivity down.”
I exchanged an optimistic glance with JD.
April pulled her phone from her purse and launched the monitoring app. She scrolled through the history and scanned several clips. Most of them were cars passing by, people walking on the streets, kids riding bicycles. Around dusk, there was a clip of a kid who rode his bike up to the car with a license plate in his hand. He unscrewed the plate from April’s car and swapped it out, then rode away.
"Can you export that clip and send it to me?" I asked.
She nodded and did so.
The video file buzzed my phone a moment later. I replayed it again and zoomed in, but it became pixelated with magnification.
"Do you recognize this kid?"
She nodded. "I don't know his name, but I see him playing with the kid down the street, Ben.” Her face crinkled. “Why would he swap plates?”

13
"Swapping plates with your car makes it less likely that the perps get pulled over since the cars look the same and your car hasn't been reported stolen,” I said.
"Makes sense," she replied.
"Can you tell me where Ben lives?"
"Sure thing. He's just down the street from me." She gave me the address. "What do I do about the license plates?"
"You need to get new plates,” Mendoza said. “You can’t drive the car without them."
The forensics team arrived, removed the stolen plates from the vehicle, and dusted them for fingerprints.
We left the scene and headed to Ben's house. He lived a few blocks away on Parnell Street in a teal, two-story house. There was a low concrete wall around the front yard with a wrought-iron gate. There were various types of palm trees in the yard.
We parked at the curb, hopped out, and pushed through the gate. We banged on the white double doors.
"Who is it?” a female voice asked through the door.
"Coconut County, ma'am." I held up my badge as she peered through a side window.
She pulled open the door with a curious look on her face. She was in her late 30s and had wavy brown hair that hung to her shoulders.
"We're looking for a boy that lives in the neighborhood. He's friends with your son, Ben.” I showed her a screengrab of the suspect’s image. "You recognize this kid?"
"I can't be totally sure, but that looks like Jared. What's he done?"
I filled her in on the situation.
She looked mortified. “You don't think Ben had anything to do with this, do you?"
"Hard to say,